Three years after the anti-recreational marijuana (ARM) lobby, led by the Evangelical churches, garnered the 20,000 or so signatures needed to trigger a referendum to challenge the government’s move toward full legalization of recreational marijuana in Belize, Belizeans who are registered voters on Caye Caulker go to the polls, on October 8, 2025, to decide if recreational use of the drug will be regulated on the island. Technically, use of recreational marijuana is legal in Belize, under a law passed in 2017 which decriminalized the possession of 10 grams of the drug. But it is ILLEGAL to grow the drug in Belize, and ILLEGAL to import it, which means to have it you have to purchase it from people who, as per the law, belong in jail.
No one blamed the 2017 government for the contradiction. The pressure of the time dictated the limits to which they could go. The present government, which also formed the 2020-2025 government, moved to create an industry, a “new growth industry”, around marijuana, and in 2022 a law to legalize the recreational use, commercial production and sale of cannabis made it through the Senate, but stopped short of the Governor General’s desk. Subsequently, the ARM group hit the streets and got the signatures needed to trigger a referendum.
The lobby against the use of recreational marijuana attracted the support of Belizeans who were worried about the impact (negative) that legalized marijuana might have on our banking system, since the drug is still illegal under federal law in the US. The proposed law also wasn’t that well received by those involved in the illegal trade. Traditional marijuana peddlers worried about not having the funds to participate in a regulated industry, and traditional users balked at having to acquire a license to smoke. The government, citing the high cost of a referendum, put the law on hold, where it has been since, until one Caye Caulker Village councillor decided to move the sale of marijuana from the back street out into the open.
The ARM lobby is unrelenting. The fact is that in the US, the same Evangelical Christians who were the force behind the prohibition of alcoholic beverages, an ill-conceived law which led to massive corruption of political leaders and security personnel, and was repealed after around a dozen years, were behind the stigmatization of marijuana as a terrible and dangerous drug. According to a Wikipedia page on the the topic, marijuana use was banned in Panama in 1923, in Trinidad and Tobago in 1925, in the UK in 1928, and in 1937 the US “passed the Marijuana Tax Act, effectively prohibiting most use of cannabis on a federal level due to the heavy burdens of the tax.”
While recreational marijuana use is still prohibited in most places, the hysteria about it has waned. The World Health Organization reported that in December 2020 the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) “suggested that cannabis and cannabis resin should be reclassified from its current listing alongside heroin, fentanyl analogues and other opioids considered to be exceptionally harmful to public health.” While the CND’s vote did not affect the “non-medical use or promote legalization” of marijuana, the drug is now “classified as having a similar degree of abuse and dependence potential as medicines such as morphine and oxycodone.”
Most people who are still ferociously against the use of marijuana since the propaganda that it was extremely dangerous was debunked, now cling to the position that it is a sinister gateway drug. The same argument has been used against cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, which are both legal. It is hard to find a young person who has never used either. Fortunately, the vast majority of young people aren’t regular smokers when they grow up, and only few become alcoholics.
It is accepted that on Caye Caulker, and in almost in every village, town, and city in Belize, there are individuals who smoke marijuana recreationally. Marijuana is a drug, not a food. The majority of people who use marijuana understand that, like alcoholic beverages and pharmaceuticals, there are risks involved with its use. The benefits of analgesics and other drugs sold in the pharmacy are listed on the packet, and so are their possible side effects. Every packet of cigarettes comes with the warning that there are some negative consequences, including lung cancer, associated with the use of the contents. People still smoke cigarettes. They must get some great satisfaction from smoking, why they don’t give up the habit.
The lines are drawn. No one is worrying that full legalization of marijuana on Caye Caulker would disrupt the banking system. The ARM lobby is leaning heavily on the support of traditional peddlers, whom they are reminding that they will be displaced if the law is passed. Indeed, traditional peddlers and some users have their concerns about all the regulations that would come with full legalization. The relationship between those against recreational marijuana and those who peddle it illegally might be the most extraordinary exhibit of “strange bedfellows” yet.
While the government might see the potential of the Caye Caulker referendum to restart the “new growth industry” (the production, sale, and taxation of the product), it is also a strong argument that regulated use of marijuana will ensure that Belizeans who use it aren’t exposed to adulterated products. Of particular concern are our youth who, during a single inquisitive whiff of the herb, could be introduced to cocaine, a far more addictive and dangerous drug. Horror stories reported on the foreign media about marijuana laced with deadly fentanyl by unscrupulous drug dealers can’t be ignored. As long as marijuana remains semi-legal, unregulated, we run those risks.
If Caye Caulker votes YES, and the government respects the result of the referendum, the
island becomes a test ground for what regulated marijuana use could look like in the rest of the country. If the leaders of Caye Caulker—and the village councilors who appear on the media platforms have shown themselves to be mature and intelligent – are able to make the anti-marijuana lobby there accept that their fears were misplaced, it opens the door for the rest of the country. But the risk to the banking system might still dissuade Belizeans in other parts of the country from going all the way.
The government is uncertain about how it would handle a situation where the drug is legal in a single location. While the Prime Minister has announced that his government will move to disallow the holding of referendums by individual communities, there’s no denying that if the drug gets the green light on Caye Caulker, the government will be pressed to allow other tourist destinations to have their own “responsible, regulated” marijuana trade. The consensus is that many tourists don’t mind smoking a little herb when they are in Belize, and “science” has declared that the drug is rather mild.
Marijuana is a drug, and it is advisable for Belizeans to reject its use, and all drugs for that matter. But people in charge have to be realistic. In 2017, venerated elders, former Tourism Minister, Henry Young, and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, C.B. Hyde, both non-users of marijuana, lent their status to the government’s push to decriminalize the possession of 10 grams of the product, to end the absolute farce, and insanity of jailing our young ones who were caught smoking.
As the prohibition of alcoholic beverages caused corruption in the US, the “grey” status of marijuana in Belize creates the environment for dishonesty. But, it’s for the leaders and islanders on Caye Caulker to decide. If they vote NO, we are left with a status quo that is very shady. The law to decriminalize the possession of marijuana made no provision for the cultivation of marijuana in Belize, or its importation. God dropped manna from the heavens for the Jews when they were starving in the wilderness. Belizeans who smoke marijuana are not getting it from above. They are getting it from sources that aren’t legal. Like everyone else, we are counting down the days to October 8.
